Misreadings?

On May 5th the Guardian Review featured a leading article by Blake Morrison titled 'Dream Country', concerning the British Library's new exhibition 'Writing Britain', about writers and landscape. According to Morrison, Lawrence was one of a group of writers, alongside Dickens and Bennett, who wrote of 'towns and cities', a genre that Morrison christens 'gritlit'.

It is curious that Lawrence should be included in this category when he repeatedly stated his horror of urban England, and located all his memorable scenes in rural settings, particularly in his greatest work such as The Rainbow or Women in Love. After leaving England in 1912 he rarely lived in a city, preferring small communities which perhaps reflected the semi-rural village of Eastwood where he had grown up.

Lawrence never wrote in defence of the proletariat, as Morrison claims, being too complex a writer for such easy pigeon-holing. Perhaps the fact that the same article claims that Birkin was a character in The Rainbow (in fact he is introduced in the first chapter of Women in Love, 'Sisters') shows how closely the critic has read these novels.